Tag Archives: random walk

Random Walks in Vermont

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In March of 2010 I did a residency at the Vermont Studio Center, and during that residency I drew random walks across the landscape, using my hiking GPS to record my path. It took me a while, but I finally got those random walks saved as image files to post here.

For this particular piece, I started with a full mile, headed in a random direction. I then grafted that mile in Google Earth, placing it so that it would be easily accessible to the VCS. After that, I created nine more walks each a mile long, each broken up into an increasing number of segments. Each segment would head off from the previous segment at a random angle, creating a random pathway across the landscape.

Once these paths were created in Google Earth, I downloaded them into my GPS. I then proceeded to walk those paths, or at least as close as one can when one has to contend with hills, roads, rotten snow, logs, trees, and early-spring college-age disc golfers. Because each walked path meandered back and forth across the “perfect” path, each walked path was longer than the perfect path by up to ten percent. You can see the fractal nature of the walks I took in each image. The perfect path is white, and the walked path is green.

The first few paths had very long segments, so their thumbnails will display at a smaller scale than the later paths. The tenth path actually stayed pretty much within bounds of the Johnson State College campus, while the first path headed out northeast across the snowy forest.

Wooden Random Walks

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And my obsession with random processes continues. Using basswood strips, dice, glue and five colors of wood stain, I’m playing around with randomness again, but trying, this time, to create an aesthetic sensibility with the process. I’m hoping that the natural material and earth colors will soften the hard edges of the concept and create little lyrical creations. I don’t know, but I’m pretty happy with these so far:

They’re anywhere from 5″ to 14″ wide. The fewer segments, the shorter, of course.

To create these, I roll three dice: one eight-sided, one six-sided and one ten-sided. The eight-sided die tells me how long the segment is in inches, the six-sided die tells me the color of the segment, and the ten-sided die tells me if I should stop, if the die shows “0″. I cut out the series of segments, stain them the correct colors, then construct the random path by spinning the segment and using the resulting alignment. The three completely natural paths were done before I decided to stain the pieces.

I might change the die I use to choose the length, just for funsies, but lengths from 1″ to 8″ work well for these. The stains I’m using are Ebony, English Chestnut, Provincial, Early American and Colonial Maple, with #6 reserved for natural wood. The whole piece is then coated in tung oil for protection. The craftsmanship is a little off, but these are basically maquettes. There’s plenty of time for hardcore joinery as they progress.

ART @ 52 Oxford Pics

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There was a great little art fair at the Northwest biology building in Harvard yesterday, a portion of the proceeds of which went to the Susan G. Komen Foundation. I was able to be part of the fair, which was very well put together. Here’s a pic of my space:

I was also able to draw a Random Walk on the floor with tape, bringing my collection of floor walks up to 4. Here’s a snapshot of the piece from the side:

And here’s a composite of individual shots that give more of an overhead view:

Finally, here’s the time-lapse video I created while making the piece:

Finally: Full Composite of the Harvard Random Walk

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I finally managed to piece together the random walk I did at the show at Adams House. I took about 80 pics, spaced about a full step apart in both directions. Alas, the flash made the centers of each frame brighter than the edges, but the shape of the walk is preserved. Here it is, sized for your browser, with the blue circle of “Proportional Moon” included.

Harvard Random Walk Composite

Around 60 images composited together to provde a bird's-eye view of the random walk I inscribed for "Indigenous Data". The blue circle is the delineation for "Proportional Moon".

Six Hours on the Subway is Very Tiring

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I just spent a good portion of the day on my Random Red Line project, in which I travel to random stops on the MBTA Red Line subway until my original stop comes up. This ride was cut short by a previous engagement, but I managed 12 random stations in six hours. I… am tired.

My phone conked out on me a couple stations in, which was a drag, because I was using it as a random number generator. I quickly whipped off ten more random numbers and wrote them on my hand, so I could continue the project. Herewith:

Time Check with Random Numbers